new to tanking

[CD82]

hey folks i have a level 40 protection human pally. his name is Coolpally hes on Ravencrest and i have a few questions. and i need some tips and hints hopefuly i came to the right place


anyway im new to tanking pretty much and i need some ideas.

first of all my rotation is Avengers Shield judgement consecration holy wrath and hammer of righteous.

is that a good roatation or is it to big?

where should i start tanking

i dont want to get into a random and upset a bunch of people. but ive got to learn some how what whould be the best way to do this?

what should i pull first?

what sword should i use i know a shiled and ive got it
i need a good one hander a fast one the shield im using is Vigilant Buc.kler right now i have a slow one handed axe named Butchers Slicer.

any helpful tips whould be greatly apperciated

[Kurtosis]

Disclaimer: I'm not a pally expert. I LFG leveled a my prot pally from 40 to 72 during patch 3.5.x, then from 72 to 74 during 4.0.1. I may have some of the details of what abilities hit harder than others off, but this should help you with the general idea. Pally experts welcome to add corrections.

first of all my rotation is Avengers Shield judgement consecration holy wrath and hammer of righteous.

is that a good roatation or is it to big?

That sounds fine, although there are two kinds of pulls and your rotation should change slightly depending on which you're doing: group of mobs, single mob (usually a boss).

Group: start with the highest dmg AoE first - AS, Hammer of Righteous, Holy Wrath, Consecration, then Judgement. Then repeat HotR till you get 3 Holy Power, then Shield of the Righteous.

Single Target: start with highest dmg single target abilities first - AS, Crusader Strike (or Judgement first if the boss isn't in CS range yet), Judgement, Holy Wrath, Consecration. Repeat CS till 3 Holy Power, then Shield of the Righteous.

Regarding Shield of the Righteous, you actually want to use it the first time each pull as soon as you get 1 Holy Power in order to activate Holy Shield to reduce the dmg you're taking. But after that, try save SotR till you have 3 Holy Power.

where should i start tanking

Go out in the world and solo groups of mobs until you get your abilities into your muscle memory. Try higher level ones for more challenge. After you've got your abilities in your muscle memory, then just use the LFG tool for random dungeons. It's the green button in the game menu bar (says Dungeon Finder or something like that).

i dont want to get into a random and upset a bunch of people. but ive got to learn some how what whould be the best way to do this?

Every tank goes through that at the start. The best way to get over that hump is to start tanking earlier in the game, at lower levels, when the fights are not complex and easier to handle. lvl 40 is a good time to jump in.

what should i pull first?

Kill the casters first, eg the mobs with blue mana bars. I find it helpful to use the Keybindings menu to bind Raid Target Skull and Raid Target X to two unused mouse buttons, so I can mark the kill order of each pull. Skull and Cross almost always go over the caster mobs.

Also, learn how to pull a group of mobs toward you, so that when they get low on health they can't run over to nearby buddies and aggro a whole new group. Two ways to do this:

Line of Sight (LOS): Hit the group with AS, then run back around the corner, hide behind a wall or something so the mobs can't see you. If something substantial like a wall is blocking their view of you, they can't hit you with spells or ranged and have to move closer to unblock their view b/f they can hit you. Just wait around the corner till they get near, then pop Consecration so they run through it as they come around the corner, then start your regular AoE rotation.

Make sure to tell the DPS and healers not to start dps and healing till the mobs have run around the corner and are grouped up on you, or they'll aggro the mobs and ruin your LOS attempt. Better yet, have the dps and healers wait around the corner with you.

Silence the Caster: Since you don't get the talent that makes Avenger's Shield silence casters till around lvl 60 or 70 (Shield of the Templar), you can't do this yet. But usually if you silence casters for a few seconds, they'll run over to you to melee you instead, putting them into your AoE range along with the melee mobs.

In both cases, the idea is to move the entire group of mobs further away from other mobs groups near them. That way, when they get low on health, freak out, and try to run away, there will be less chance they'll run over to a group of their buddes, aggro it, and all 5 of their buddies come running over and wipe your group. Instead they'll just run away harmlessly while your ranged dps finishes them off.

what sword should i use

While you're leveling just use the highest DPS weapon you can find, and don't worry too much about weapon speed.

Fast weapons used to be preferred so you can Alt-Tab between the mobs you're tanking, hitting each one once or twice to build threat, then moving on to the next. That also restored mana and/or health faster depending on what Seal and Judgement you were using. I'm not sure if that's still the case, but in my experience weapon speed doesn't matter much while leveling, weapon DPS is much more important.

[CD82]

i dont have shiled of the righteous yet

maybe my build isnt right could yall check that out ??

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-t...lpally&group=2

also what glyphs shuld i need?

[Kurtosis]

Build looks fine. For glyphs, definitely Hammer of the Righteous (Prime). The rest you'd have to ask another pally expert on. I went with Crusader Strike/Shield of the Righteous for Primes, Aescetic Crusader/Hammer of Wrath/Divinity for Majors (or Holy Wrath in place of Divinity for instances with lots of elementals & Dragonkin, like Dire Maul and Black Rock Spire (if you go there instead of straight to Outlands).

The rule of thumb I've used when leveling my tanks is to choose talents and glyphs that:

1. First and foremost increase the damage (hence threat) I deal.
2. That increases my survivability (either by increasing the amount of dmg I can absorb, or by decreasing the amount that my target mob deals, or by increasing healing effects on me).
3. Finally, pick ones that increase or conserve rage/runes/mana (can't do threat if you're OOM). For example, Reckoning is nice that respect since it gives you more weapon swings, and at least one of a Pally's seals (Insight) generates both healing and mana when you hit with your weapon.

Sometimes you have make tradeoffs between talents that increase your AoE or single target threat, like you're currently doing with Hallowed Ground and Wrath of the Lightbringer. There's no right answer to that, you just have to pay attention during your runs to how well you hold aggro on groups of mobs or on bosses. If you're losing aggro on either, you might need to respec or reglyph to compensate.

There are other talents that provide some convenience, like Improved Hammer of Justice, and would be nice to have but not necessary, and not at the expense of any talents from #1, #2, or #3 above. I don't take those.

[CD82]

thanks for the help so far

now as far as rotations god ive got a nother question concerning them

is there really a set rotation ? or if i find something that works better could i use it??

also is deadly boss mods good to use or is there something better??

is there any kind of tanking addons? to maybe help me get more in the door of tanking ?

also it seems to me blacksmithing has gone down hill now that you cant do armorsmith or weapons

what whould be a good profession ive got mining as one

[Banterloft]

Honestly leveling as a pally you could ret tank most instances. You won't hone your skills until late BC dungons and leveling thru wrath. I'm on ravencrest as well. Shoot me a tell and I will help where I can. My mains are Tegid, Skrood, and Hershel.

[CD82]

alright i will most def give you a shout on there thanks.

[CD82]

Honestly leveling as a pally you could ret tank most instances. You won't hone your skills until late BC dungons and leveling thru wrath. I'm on ravencrest as well. Shoot me a tell and I will help where I can. My mains are Tegid, Skrood, and Hershel.

ive heard other people tell me this in chat on the game. now please forgive me how hwould i go about doing this?
any certian rotation whould be be eaiser to learn pulling ?

[Kurtosis]

is there really a set rotation ? or if i find something that works better could i use it??

There used to be a rotation, but as of the 4.0 patch it seems like there's more of a priority system in which you try to use your hardest hitting abilities as soon as they come off cooldown. Ref my group and single target rotations in first post.

also is deadly boss mods good to use or is there something better??

It's certainly useful to start playing with addons and macro's earlier than later, so knock yourself out. When you hit 80 you'll have built up an UI and interface that really work for you.

Having said that, I don't recall if Deadly Boss Mods has all the lower level 5-man dungeons in it or not. If not, also check out Big Wigs and Deus Vox Encounters (DXE). They're good boss mods too.

is there any kind of tanking addons? to maybe help me get more in the door of tanking ?

There is only one I can't live without - Tide Plates: Threat Plates. It colors mob nameplates green, yellow, or red depending on your threat (green = you have high threat on that mob, yellow = you're losing threat, red = you've lost threat and need to taunt or something). Use the Beta version linked on that page for WoW 4.0.x.

A threat meter like Omen or Skada is nice to have too, though you can get by with just Threat Plates.

also it seems to me blacksmithing has gone down hill now that you cant do armorsmith or weapons

The value in Blacksmithing is its ability to add 2 extra jewel sockets to your gear, that you can put any kind of gem in. For tanks it's almost always Stam, but say you're really low on hit rating and are losing aggro because of that, you can add extra hit rating gems instead. Combine that with Jewelcrafting and you've got the two most flexible professions.

what whould be a good profession ive got mining as one

While you're leveling it's more important to make gold, so just got with mining/skinning or mining/herbalism till 85. Save all your ore in the bank, or in your alts' banks, auction all the herbs/skins. Then at 85 use all the gold and ore you collected to powerlevel Jewelcrafting and/or Blacksmithing using a profession powerleveling guide on the internet (google it, lots of em out there).

[Kurtosis]

ive heard other people tell me this in chat on the game. now please forgive me how hwould i go about doing this?
any certian rotation whould be be eaiser to learn pulling ?

You could, just make sure you have Righteous Fury active so your all abilities do more threat.

But imho it's better to level as Prot so you'll know Prot well at 80. If you level as Ret to, say, 58, then switch to Prot when you get to Outlands (where your ability to tank as Ret ends, iirc), you'l have 18 more levels worth of abilities, talent, and playstyle to learn. And it's not like Prot is harder than Ret, it's not. Tanking is harder than dps regardless which spec you're doing it with.

It's very nice to have a fellow Tankspotter on your realm to ping with questions and whatnot.

[Kurtosis]

PS - Don't forget to read all the Tankspot guides and watch the tanking videos, they're hugely helpful.

[CD82]

ok another question i have an it leaves me kind of qurious. i had the pally rested for about two weeks non played. kept him in dal or in sw i been playin him but not hard. i rested him saturday didnt play much yesterday and i was in a random. tonight and lost my rested xp fast like. for some reason im not keeping rested xp like i should

[Kurtosis]

I don't know if that's working as intended or not, best I can do is point you to wowwiki.com's page on the topic. Maybe some useful info there.

[CD82]

well i tanked my first dungeon it was maraudon. no one died and they said i did ok. i did loose threat some so ill have to work on that. and im also looking for more plater armor along the way. im happy with the way it turned out

[Kurtosis]

Great, sounds like you're already ahead of the game. I LFG leveled a healer recently and there are a decent number of new tanks at those lower levels that have alot of trouble with it. Gj, gl!

[CD82]

well my laptop hard drive crashed which had my build i was going buy on it. so that really pisses me off im lost on my build now also had my ret build saved. and all that good stuff i dunno now what i should do.

[Kurtosis]

Your build? You mean your addons and UI arrangement? If you mean your talent build, just use wowhead or MMO Champion to re-remember it.

If you mean your addons and UI design, only advice I an offer is to start over, try to remember the addons you lost, and recreate them. Then save your WTF folder to a free Dropbox.com account in case this happens again.

[CD82]

my talent build i had an armory saved and it was in the favs on that hard drive. i think i remebr some of it though

[CD82]

im also in search of a good dps weapon one hander any suggestions?

[Kurtosis]

I don't know any off the top of my head, but Wowhead has a great filter search feature. It lets you search through all the 1h weapons in the game, and narrow them down by the level required to use them, quality (green, blue, purple), and other characteristics.